The newest visuals from Tay’s Charity Starts At Home album are for “The Good Fight,” a track that should resonate with many around the country right now. On a personal level, it’s been interesting getting my career going the past few years while most of the US struggle with the recession and the aftermath of Bush’s disastrous reign. Every time I watch the news (well, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report), it’s jarring to see and hear about all the problems facing our society and economy.

Meanwhile, I’ve managed to come up a bit, bought a condo, and have a job that I enjoy working for the best possible company I could imagine. I’m not sure I could be any more blessed and I’m thankful that the issues Tay discusses on this record haven’t quite affected me like most folks. Hopefully I can stay lucky and anyone reading this post can do the same. Keep working hard and stay positive! Good things happen to good people.

It’s time to put the smack down on these Republicans and their sickening behavior in the House and Senate. Not only are they being contrarian just for the sake of arguing, they have absolutely no legs to stand on. When you’ve run the country into its lowest point since the Great Depression and have made wrong decision after wrong decision, your opinions and theories are null and void. You had your chance and you failed…epically.

I’m glad Barack is playing nice with these fools, but they’ll soon find out that all their whining and complaining is going to be moot as he gets to work. I just wish they’d spare us the show. STFU and sit your ass down in the backseat. You drove the country off the pavement at every fork in the road, and now you’re trying to tell us how to drive. Why on earth should anyone listen to you?

Do your thing Barack and let’s get this headed in the right direction.

But in all seriousness, this is rather important stuff. For many of us, the Keating Five scandal happened when we were just children. I certainly didn’t know anything about it at the time, and only heard vague references about it before becoming heavily interested in politics a few years ago.

In essence, the behavior and decisions McCain made during this scandal, and even today, make it painfully clear that he is not someone who should have any impact over our economy, especially during a crisis like this. I’m not an economist, but I do firmly believe that there’s a certain level of regulation that you need. The basic Republican tenet of deregulation has been shown time and time again that it’s not beneficial for the country. Simply put, they are awful in all economic matters unless you’re “rich.” May I remind you:

Even if we make every single right decision from here on out, it will take years for us to recover, let alone excel. Obama’s plan and team of economic advisors is head and shoulders above McCain’s, which is why the Republicans have decided to throw the kitchen sink of smears at Barack. It’ll continue to get worse, until McCain completely ruins any sort of positive legacy he has cultivated over the years. But actually, when you look at things like the Keating Five, perhaps his reputation isn’t so sterling after all.

In case you haven’t heard, in light of the recent economic crisis, John McCain has decided to suspend his campaign to try to help solve the problem. Sane people will look at this maneuver and realize it’s a fairly desperate attempt to avoid pwnage in Friday’s debate, but McCain clearly hopes that his campaign can spin it positively. Expect to hear a million surrogates talking up the idea that “McCain is showing he’ll put his country ahead of his campaign.” That sounds nice, but unfortunately, it’s patently false.

McCain’s inability to get any sort of grasp on economic issues (remember: this man has admitted multiple times that he doesn’t understand how the economy works) has lead to an awful performance on the campaign trail the past 2 weeks. With the Palin bounce fading quickly, and even beginning to negatively affect the ticket, they were increasingly desperate. The idea that if McCain returns to Washington to sit in on some meetings and provide his voice, this $700 billion bailout will be hammered through is absolutely laughable. Whether it happens or not, it will not be because of John McCain.

So why did he insist upon suspending the campaign and ducking the first debate on Friday? Simple: he’s getting hammered on the economy. As I’ve blogged about before, anytime an actual important issue or policy is talked about, the Republicans lose. That’s why they want you to worry about flag pin lapels or pigs with lipstick. Once the economy became the main focus, McCain’s campaign went down quicker than his plane dur– no…wait…I’m better than that. Anyway, he’s losing ground all over the place and in order to stop the hemmorraging, he pulled this stunt. It’s akin to calling a timeout when the other team is racking up points, only in this case, you were already out of timeouts. Shouldn’t this be a technical foul? Where’s Chris Webber?

This is not a legitimate reason to suspend your campaign and try to postpone the beatdown you’re going to receive at the first debate. Now, Barack handled this as professionally and stately as possible. He knows exactly what McCain is doing and his remarks above could not have been better. Thankfully, I’m not running for office, so I’ll say it:

For a “war hero,” where is your vaunted courage Senator McCain? Take your beating like a man and go to the first debate on Friday. You’re running scared, but it’s understandable. Barack has Ali-like swag right now, and you’re about to be on the receiving end.

In case you need more information after part one, check out the video above.

Here are some key elements of Barack’s plan:

A $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families with high fuel costs right now while putting $50 billion into job creation to get our economy back on track.

Families making less than $250,000 a year will get a tax cut three times larger than under John McCain’s plan and will face absolutely no tax increases.

While John McCain has voted against raising the minimum wage 19 times, Barack would raise the minimum wage and set it to rise automatically with inflation.

Invest $15 billion a year in green energy research to reduce our economy’s dependence on foreign oil and create 5 million American jobs a year.

Anyone still want to argue a lack of substance? [Big L] Aight then [/Big L]. Can we focus on who is best on the issues that actually matter? McCain and the Republicans are simply on the wrong side of history in 2008 and we can’t let them steal this election by clouding the public consciousness with idiocy. Be smart and rise above that.

Take some time and educate yourself @ BarackObama.com/plan. It’s hilarious that people still have the audacity to suggest Barack hasn’t laid out what “change” means, and doubly as offensive when McCain’s answer to our economic problems is to simply create a commission to review the issue. His campaign also said it wasn’t necessary to explain exactly what they would do in response to our economic crisis and he says our “economy is strong” on a daily basis. This is a joke, right?

In related news, that ether:

Please make sure you and your friends are registered to vote. This election is too important to sit out or vote from an uninformed perspective. You have a responsibility.